


Waiting

by NerdyMind



Series: 3k Puzzle Challenge Winners [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Car Accident, F/M, First Kiss, M/M, bonding over cake and cats, molly is actually a doctor, sometimes people forget
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2609438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyMind/pseuds/NerdyMind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped in a lift on one of the worst nights of his life, Mycroft Holmes finds himself drawn to the young woman everyone takes for granted.<br/>____<br/>Fic is a prize for Anyawen.  This didn't quite get as dire or smutty as you may have liked, but I kinda jumped in blind on this ship and let it sail itself.  Hope it's to your liking!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anyawen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anyawen/gifts).



“Take him, check him first,” Mycroft struggles to sit upright on the gravel road. His hands and eyes are stinging. He shifts his left leg to free the one twisted beneath him, wincing at the bolt of pain that courses along every exposed nerve. Sighing he looks down upon ruined shoes and a custom fit suit shredded in his sudden collision with the pavement. The flashing lights of their rescuers bounce all around him, reflecting in sharp angles from every bit of shattered glass and twisted metal. He stands, futilely dusting his coat and trousers, favoring his right leg as he limps to the stretcher and climbs into the ambulance behind his little brother.

Sherlock’s breath is shallow, thready pulse proof he’s is still alive, but unresponsive. He looks impossibly small lying there and Mycroft pulls his phone out to text Anthea before he remembers she is already here, had already administered CPR and phoned for help. Mycroft looks up, finds his assistant standing beside the second ambulance and taking care of Marcos. Their driver took the most damage, thrown from the car as it rolled from the bridge.

_Stay with him, keep me updated. MH_

**Take care of yourself, sir. A**

***

At Bart’s, Sherlock is rushed into surgery. Mycroft watches, helpless as strangers jostle and shift his little brother. Jabbing him with needles and filling him with tubes. A jagged piece of shrapnel from the front console sways and dips in Sherlock’s left hip with every movement and Mycroft has to turn away. With nothing to distract him, his own injuries jostle for renewed attention. He limps down the hallway and collapses into the stiff red plastic benches of the waiting area. Waiting.

Counting floor tiles serves as a temporary distraction from the pain. Forty six black, twenty three red, one hundred and fifteen white. Four unidentified stains. Three identified. Iodine spill. Partially cleaned vomit. Dribbles of coffee held gripped too tight by nervous fingers earlier that morning. Mycroft is just about to attempt a hobble to the coffee dispenser himself when a soft voice draws in sharp breath behind him.

“Miss Hooper,” he greets coldly without taking his eyes from the floor. Pale pink Nursemate shoes come into his vision. Distracting. “Sherlock is in surgery. I am told he will pull through if--”

“And what about you then? Has no one attended to your leg?”

Mycroft looks up at this mouse of a woman, eyes and mouth open in shock. Molly stares him down, hands in her too large labcoat pockets, threadbare blue scrubs hanging from a delicate frame that does not suit the nervous energy pouring from her eyes. One sharp eyebrow raised in challenge. A single pink shoe tapping. Waiting.

“I.. umm,” Mycroft snaps his mouth closed, shakes his head. No one makes him nervous. It must be the situation. The stress. “I will be attended to by my own doctors once Sherlock is--”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” Mycroft blinks and sits up straighter, affronted by a single syllable and this tiny woman glaring down at him. “Miss Hooper, while I appreciate-- that is, I do not think you--”

“No,” Molly reaches for his elbow, pulling the man to his feet without further debate. “Let’s go. This way.” Mycroft lets himself be pulled along, no longer in control of his own body. He feels weightless, floating on confusion and excitement. The whole hospital has grown fuzzy and dreamlike. Surely he must be dreaming. No one speaks to him this way.

In seconds they are standing before the lift. Molly still clutching his elbow, eyeing his injured leg with concern and anger. She shifts her grip, a frail arm tightening across his lower back and suddenly Molly Hooper is made of steel. He relaxes into the frame she has provided him. His leg quivering thanks and betraying his weakness. “Can you stand?” she asks as the doors open, shuffling them both inside and pressing the fifth floor button. “I should have asked before. You can lean on me-- I mean, no, that is if you--”

Mycroft laughs at her fumbling, genuinely finding her concern endearing. But Molly takes it as an insult and stiffens beside him. “I am quite alright, thank you,” Mycroft smiles, attempting to soothe the accidental hurt. She hesitantly returns his gesture and he finds he cannot stop staring. Her smile is brilliant and genuine. A proper smile on a happy face. Molly wears her heart on her sleeve, he knows this. Has known this. He’s watched her flitting just beyond his brother’s peripheral vision for years. But to be on the receiving end of all that glaring warmth, Mycroft finds himself blinded by it. “Miss Hopper, I--”

A sudden jolt of the car cuts him short. The lights flicker overhead and a muted alarm begins to ring somewhere inside the wall.

“Oh, you have got to be-- fuck,” Molly jerks up beside him, thumping her palms against the closed doors. “Sorry,” she blushes and looks away, covering her mouth in apology for the swear.

“It’s--no,” Mycroft finds his own heart hammering, a rising heat threatening his pale cheeks. _It’s rather cute_ , he thinks. “It’s fine,” he says and pulls a phone from his coat. “What is the usual response time for a stranded lift?”

“Last week it took maintenance four hours. But that was late shift and they were shorthanded. Maybe we--”

“Damn!” Mycroft pounds his own fist against the wall. Molly jumps and squeals beside him in surprise. “No signal on this bloody.. how thick are these doors?”

“Thick as Anderson’s skull, Sherlock would say,” she laughs and Mycroft finds himself smiling but internally displeased at the mention of his brother’s name. Warring emotions twisting him from inside. _Concern. Envy. It’s always Sherlock they want, isn’t it? Friends and lovers._

“Here,” Molly shifts her arm back to his waist and Mycroft is jolted back from his mind to the present. “Sit, it may be a while.” Mycroft obliges her pulling and settles onto the cold floor, gangly legs sprawled out into the small space, nearly toeing the opposite wall.

“Thank you,” he says. Not meeting her steady gaze. But the walls are solid metal, reflective surfaces, and he finds he cannot hide forever. Molly settles down beside him and he watches her shadowed reflection straighten the labcoat as she leans forward. One hand reaching, hovering just beyond his injured knee. Waiting.

“May I?” she asks. Mycroft turns his head to face the questioning hand directly.

“If you insist,” he tries to sound disinterested. Tries to stay where he belongs. In the background. Pulling strings, directing, guiding others. Tries to swallow the hiss of pain that slips past his lips when she shifts his tattered trousers and finds the open injury. Molly brushes a gentle hand across a perfectly square laceration surrounded by an ugly bruise. All that remains of his kneecap.

“Seatbelt,” he answers the unasked question. He can picture the moment clearly. The initial impact. His limo teetering on the bridge, Sherlock knocked unconscious across from him as Mycroft blinked and adjusted to the chill pouring in through a shattered window. Anthea reaching out, unclasping the safety belt from his brother’s waist just as they lurched forward and the world turned upside down. The loose belt flailing, a wild pendulum set free to maul him in its descent.

“Mycroft Holmes, you dirty liar,” Molly pouts and swats at his shoulder, the force between a tease and a punch. “You said you were fine,” she explains seeing the look of shock play across his face.

“I will be fine. I have my own doctors and Sherlock’s injuries were--”

“Stop.”

Mycroft snaps his mouth shut and stares at her in utter confusion. _A single word. Again. How does she keep doing that?_

“Your brother can take care of himself. He is going to pull through, you said,” Molly swallows then looks away. “And he has John, yeah?”

Mycroft doesn’t know why he does what he does but his hand reaches out for hers and he is grasping those shaking fingers, interlocking them with his own. A single thumb stroking in reassuring circles until she looks up and finds him staring. “Yes, I called Doctor Watson from the ambulance,” he tells her. Knowing she meant so much more by her last comment but knowing it doesn’t need to be said. “And I have you, Doctor Hooper,” he smiles. “Will I pull through?”

“I,” Molly stammers, a blush creeping back across her cheeks. “Yes. I believe you will be well taken care of.”

“Fantastic,” Mycroft gives her hand a squeeze then reluctantly drops the gesture to lean back against the wall and adjust his injured knee to a more comfortable position. “Then I leave myself in your skilled hands, Doctor.”

Molly beams. She genuinely lights up at the praise. Her own colleagues forget she is a properly trained medical doctor. Just then she remembers the travel first aid kit in her oversized labcoat pockets. Sometimes she forgets she’s a properly trained medical doctor, too. She shifts to her knees and pulls the small box out. “First thing, Mr. Holmes, we don’t want you getting infected. Might have to lose that leg.”

“Mycroft, if you please,” he corrects her. “And I agree, let’s try to save my leg. I did not forgo cake and take up the treadmill to have these calves binned.”

“Oh yes, dreadful business,” Molly laughs, nodding in mock agreement as she opens a small packet. “Dieting. Exercise.” She swabs the wound with antiseptic wipes, and Mycroft finds himself giggling despite the searing burn. Her bedside manner is much more welcome than the stiff healthcare staff under his employ.

The minutes pass in comfortable silence as Molly works and Mycroft watches. The banter stays light, Molly prodding his favorite cake from him (red velvet though he’s partial to a layered strawberry masterpiece only Mrs. Hudson knows how to execute properly yet keeps hidden away for special occasions.) And he listens to Molly tell him all about her fat grey cat. “And what do you call this lovely creature?” he asks, swallowing down the paracetamol from her open palm.

“Toby,” she says laughing. Her fingers are tingling, Mycroft’s hand still brushing against hers long after the pills were retrieved. “Yes, I know it’s a bit odd giving animals people names but--”

“Not as uncommon as you might think,” Mycroft laughs, his eyes dancing in the dim light and Molly finds the man looks so young like this. When he’s happy. She shifts closer beside him, listening. “Mine is Tobias. Well, Sir Tobias of Tarth but--”

“No way,” Molly freezes, eyes blown wide in complete surprise. “You have a cat?”

“Err, yes,” Mycroft blushes, hand jumping to scratch a sudden itch at the base of his skull, and _when did I pick up that nervous tick_ he wonders. “An orange tabby mix,” he continues. Molly stares at him in a way Mycroft could swear was reserved for much prettier men. “Rescued from one of Sherlock’s earlier cases. He couldn’t stand the thing and dropped it on me as punishment, I imagine. Backfired because I fell in love. Now, it just angers him that I’ve grown so fond of Tobias that I can’t be mmmpf--”

Molly cuts him off. Compelled to no longer watch and wait, but to take, she leans up and silences those moving lips not with a word but a kiss. Before Mycroft can assess the sensation of warm lips on his own the lift lurches upwards. His mind stutters and his hands take over, pulling her closer and returning the kiss. Across from them, doors slide open to a frazzled and wide eyed John Watson.

“Oh god, oh god...” The shocked man stumbles backward. He takes off for the nearest exit, wrenching the door and bolting inside the stairway. Before he can process what he has seen, John’s phone beeps with a text alert.

_**I know how to dispose of a body. MH** _

John allows himself a small laugh, grateful for the distraction before running upstairs.

“Miss Hooper, I may have underestimated you,” Mycroft stares at the young woman with open awe as she slips her phone back inside her labcoat. Looking up, she finds his eyes have never looked quite so lovely as they do in this moment.

“Just don’t let it happen again.” Molly attempts to level the man with a serious stare but finds a blush returning to break her composure. She stands, giggling, and helps Mycroft to his feet. “Now, let’s go save that lovely leg.”


End file.
